NBN support weakens in the electorate

news A new poll has shown that 29 percent of Australians believe that new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should either “dump” or “change” Labor’s National Broadband Network policy, in news which could show that the Coalition’s message that the project is too expensive and slow to deliver may be having an effect on the NBN’s popular support.

Historically, polling of the Australian population has shown — and has shown for several years now — that Labor’s NBN policy has remained overwhelmingly popular with the electorate. The NBN’s popularity has always been highest amongst those who identify as Labor or Greens voters, but it has even historically enjoyed strong levels of support on the opposite side of the fence — those who vote for the Coalition.

In March this year, a poll taken by research house Essential Media showed that support for Labor’s NBN project had risen to a total of 73 percent, with even a majority of Coalition voters supporting the project at that stage, and that same month research in the early stage NBN rollout zone in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick showed that 89 percent backed the NBN as “a good idea”.

However, according to new poll data released this week by Essential, the Coalition’s ongoing message under Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull that the NBN rollout under Labor has been too slow, too expensive and hasn’t targeted the right areas appears to have gained some traction amongst voters.

Among other questions related to the leadership of the two major sides of politics, and especially associated with the re-emergence of Kevin Rudd as Labor leader, Essential asked some 935 respondents online the following question from 4th to 7th July: “Under Kevin Rudd’s leadership, do you think the Labor Party should dump, change or keep their policies on the following issues?” One of the issues was listed as “Building the NBN”.

In total, some 50 percent of respondents said Rudd should “keep” the NBN, representing one of the highest percentages with relation to various Labor policies, ranging from the issue of asylum seekers (only 10 percent thought Rudd should keep that policy) to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which 59 percent of respondents through Rudd should keep.

However, some 14 percent of respondents believed Rudd should “dump” the NBN policy wholesale, and a further 15 percent said they believed Rudd should “change” the policy, although it’s not clear how those respondents believed the policy should change. A further 15 percent said they didn’t know what Rudd should do. Support for the NBN, as is typical in such polls, was highest amongst Labor voters. “Labor voters were most in favour of keeping the NBN (78 percent),” wrote Essential Media in its briefing documents regarding the poll.

If Essential’s research is accurate, the results appear to point to a change attitude within the Australian population regarding the NBN. And there is further evidence of such a trend, dating back to April. At the time, analysis of polling data showed that the release of the Coalition’s NBN policy had had the effect of a large chunk of Coalition voters abandoning their previous long-term support for Labor’s existing NBN policy in favour of the new Coalition alternative.

What the data appeared to show was that the release of the Coalition’s NBN policy polarised voters. It further entrenched the popularity of Labor’s NBN plan amongst existing Labor and Greens voters. On the other hand, the policy appears to have been moderately successful in reducing support for Labor’s NBN policy amongst Coalition voters, and the majority of Coalition voters indicated that they did support the Coalition’s new NBN policy.

opinion/analysis
Troubling news here for supporters of the NBN. If Essential’s results are to be believed, support for the NBN policy as a whole has really taken a hit over the past several months, to the extent that a large proportion of the Australian population believes the NBN policy as a whole should be dumped or changed.

This isn’t really surprising. As I’ve written previously, the Coalition didn’t really have a credible and coherent alternative to the NBN until April this year, when Turnbull and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott did much to neutralise the issue of the NBN by putting up a sensible and more modest alternative. At the time, a large chunk of Coalition voters appeared to be convinced by the Coalition’s rival NBN policy, and given the energy and intellectualism which Turnbull has brought to the debate, I could only see that trend growing over the months since.

NBN Co and its political masters also haven’t done much to help the public perception of the project in that time. The company has delivered a series of construction delays, missteps and disputes with its contractors, executive departures and even an asbestos scare; and it has not taken the front foot on almost any of these issues; preferring instead to bunker down and get on with construction rather than addressing the very public alarm bells ringing around its ears. Hell, NBN Co even sabotaged its own success-oriented media release last week, as ZDNet’s Josh Taylor so perfectly laid out in a separate article.

I’ve always said, and will continue to say, that Labor’s NBN policy is a much better option than the Coalition’s ‘LBN’ alternative. However, better policy doesn’t equal better project management, and better underlying technology doesn’t equal a better political communications strategy. The tragedy of the NBN is that it’s a great policy with popular support, but backed by a dysfunctional political party which can’t seem to manage NBN Co’s failures well or take credit for its successes. We’re sure the Earl of Wentworth, with his beaming, aristocratic smile, won’t have the same problem, if he does eventually become Communications Minister.

6 weeks ago it was a foregone conclusion that the Coalition would win.

And thus we would have FttN, (assuming Turnbull didn’t decide it was actually financially and technically more sensible to simply retain the existing build, with a much firmer hand, as suggested above).

I don’t think the same assurance of a Coalition led government exists now as it did then. Unless Abbott is deposed. And then all bets are off in a Turnbull vs Rudd election.

“It will be interesting to see if the Coalition will head to an election with Abbott as leader.”

Mate, I’m telling you, there is zero chance Abbott is getting dumped pre-election. He’s had the Coalition as a winning thing for more than a year now. There is zero appetite for change on that side of the fence — until he loses an election.

Yes, however he’s been up against Gillard and enjoyed the fact that people liked her less, than he. Against Rudd, it’s a different kettle of bacon. Rudd has had more revivals than Jesus, so anything is possible.

No, writs have not been issued for an election. However, do have the nominal date given by the former Prime Minister of 14 September and a latest possible date of 30 November. If writs were issued today then the earliest possible election is 17 August. The coalition is calling for an immediate election, and we are very close to a month out from that date.

Dude. The leadership preference stuff does not matter. It is the two-party preferred vote which matters — and the Coalition is still ahead there.

In addition, to win the election, Labor actually needs to win more seats than it currently has, due to the fact that Oakeshott and Windsor are retiring, and their seats, which had previously supported the minority Labor Govt, will now go to Nationals. It is also quite likely that Craig Thomson’s seat of Dobell will go to the Libs.

Rudd’s still quite a long way behind, and that’s not even talking about the Senate, where people like Antony Green (heard of him) have been saying for a long time that the Greens and Labor will both face a very difficult time.

You said “especially when its leader is still ahead in the polls”. That is false. Perhaps you should take note of the comments policy which clearly takes exception to “Comments which inject demonstrably false information into the debate” :-)

Sorry I have been away (ignoring society until yesterday… lol) and just catching up on all of the recent events…

But having seen Labor go from being in a position of being decimated to a position of making it a close contest, when the only difference between Labor then and Labor now is the leader., suggests the leader is a if not the, determining factor for many people.

I agree with Renai, for the main reason the LNP have spent too much political capital beating up the whole leader change thing. It’d be the kiss of death if the party that harped on about it so much, did it themselves.

The only reason I think Labor will get away with it, is because in an Shakespearian kind of way, Rudd replacing Gillard just puts everything back where it was/should be in the mind of many voters.

And with Newspoll (of all polls) showing the LNP/Labor at 50/50, things are getting interesting…

People have short term memories. Turnbull was rolled when the part became nervous about it’s future.

The longer Rudd leaves the election, the more Tony’s negativity campaign is going to backfire. It worked against Gillard, because it tapped into (sometimes hysterical) public opinion. Now he’s in a very different space and time will tell if he can adapt.

A lot less people dislike Rudd, over Gillard. And people might decide to give him another shot.

Folks have also forgotten that the press will feed off either side if there’s profit in it. It’s only a matter of time before the speculation kicks in over Liberal leadership, and this will only strengthen if polls continue to show Labor gains.

“There is zero appetite for change on that side of the fence — until he loses an election.”

Which is concerning. If they are unwilling to change something relatively trivial like their leader how do we know they are willing to modify their policies and adapt to circumstances? It’s this sort of stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise that lost them the support of the independents last time. Personally I don’t think it’s a good look to be forcing a unlikable leader down everyone’s throats either… and we’ve all seen how this sort of thing has had an impact on other political parties too…

In the grand scheme of things it is trivial and furthermore I did say relatively. As I’ve said before and many times I’m more concern with policies not personalities. Labor, liberal, greens, whatever. They can change their leaders every week if they like. People like outrage mixed with drama, good for them. They should simply grow up and concentrate the important things. For me it’s not a case of “smoking” anything at all.

Abbott and the Libs are a concern, not just with Communications, but also pther areas not covered well at all in the MSM.
Actions and programs committed in their first term will effectively lock in long term consequences

FTTN was never attempted. As for FTTP, how’s the roll-out going, Chief?

Greg Hoy’s report on ABC 7:30 Report tonight showed Labor’s NBN is not merely suffering teething problems, but is in a heap of trouble. According to Mr Hoy, Albo’s inherited “a can of fibre optic worms”. Not exactly an endorsement by the Government-friendly TV station eh?

They introduced FTTH en masse without forced migration to 70% under a scheme called UFB (Ultra Fast Broadband), and for the rest they improved backhaul and introduced new cabinets to improve rural ADSL performance under a scheme called RBI (Rural Broadband Initiative).

There is no FoD here. FoD is where the cable is run on request, here the cable is run anyway to the property boundary but the customer isn’t forced to move off copper like the NBN.

When our work in the street is completed you need to place an order with your telecommunications service provider. Your service provider will then contact us to make the last connection which can be made by stringing the fibre optic cable from an existing street pole, through an existing underground duct, or through a new underground duct we install to the property.

The fibre is finally connected to the External Termination Point (ETP) which is a box on the outside of a house or building where the fibre network is joined to the internal wiring.

No it isn’t, not according to the industry standard definition of Fibre on Demand.

Fibre on Demand is where the fibre is laid in response to demand, this means you call them up, you say you want to connect and within a few weeks a team comes out and runs fibre from the node to your household.

Fibre to the Premise, or as it is more commonly referred to as Fibre to the Basement in MDUs, on the other hand, is where the fibre is run up to the premises, i.e. the property boundary. You call them up and say you want to connect and within a few days a team comes around and runs fibre up to your into your home and connects you.

Fibre to the Home is equivalent to FTTP, but for MDU involves running extra fibre to each dwealing with Strata consent.

Chrous, and other UFB boundaries, are running Fibre to the Premises. Why? Because the cable is laid down the street before you call them up and ask for them.

Fibre on Demand is where the fibre is connected from the street to the external wall of the residence in response to demand, this means you call them up, you say you want to connect and within a few weeks a team comes out and runs fibre from the property boundary to your actual physical residence.

So, back to this claimed existence of an “industry standard definition”, do we have a link ready?

Under the heading- Is it True that Australians….: ….here is the technical possibility to run fibre to one or more customers in an area served by a node. In the UK this product, known as “fibre on demand” is made available for a fee.

Turnbull is using BT’s concept. BT’s concept of FoD is from the NODE. End of story. Why can you not just accept this and move on? Seriously, what part is so hard to admit to that you were wrong?? Does it really matter???

You think just because they don’t connect it to your house that is what justifies the “on Demand” part? No. In fact, if they did that they would be in violation of most property laws worldwide.

What justifies the “on Demand” part is a) a large upfront fee to connect and b) a long (BT says 60 say) lead time to connect because BT has to install the cable from a nearby cabinet.

Chorus’ network has no charge if the lead in is 200m (the lead in being the distance from the street to your home, not from the cabinet) and the install time is typically measured in days, because all the technician has to do is pull a cable up your conduit rather than run it all the way from the local node.

If you think the “on Demand” refers to “only if you order it”, then even the NBN can be classed as “on demand”, because if you don’t order it, they won’t install an NTU.

Further, why the frak do you think you know more about UFB and RBI than a Kiwi who is patiently waiting for his street to be connected to UFB? The arrogance you have demonstrated over the past few days is mind boggling.

Following extensive consultation with the industry, Chorus VDSL will be offered from June 7 2013 as part of the BUBA product family under the UBA Standard Terms Determination, aligning its pricing with the current EUBA wholesale price. The Retail Service Providers (RSPs) will take this wholesale input price and develop their own plans and pricing to market VDSL to end users.

The so-called “interim solution” is a “solution going forward” for as far in the future as 2019. You are welcome to define more than half a decade as “interim”. It’s just semantics. But it cannot be remotely credibly argued that “NZ has already written off FTTN” when they just introduced a new FTTN wholesale product a month ago that will not be retired for six years!

“In some areas fibre will not be available until 2019, so in those regions Chorus VDSL provides an important interim step. It will also provide many end users in areas that are not currently included in the Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB) initiative with the opportunity to enjoy faster speeds,” she said.

Chorus will offer VDSL in all regions until mid-2015, and stop selling it progressively as the fibre roll-out is completed in areas where Chorus was selected for UFB.

“Fibre is the superior technology and we are clear that VDSL is a stepping stone to fibre. As such, we are offering VDSL in Chorus UFB areas in the interim, but will not sell any new VDSL connections once our fibre build is complete in Chorus regions,” she said.

Chorus may also review the ongoing provision of VDSL if its continued availability affects fibre uptake in Chorus’ UFB areas.

The press release is very clear, they have no interest in future investment in FTTN upgrades within the UFB footprint, and anyone on VDSL will be upgraded to UFB when it becomes avaiable in their area.

Quite a smart move, you spent all this money on DSLAMs that you’re not going to use any-more because you’ve decided to use fibre, not to mention the hundreds of millions you poured into shortening line lengths. If a customer will get a benefit from VDSL, why not offer it to them? Those DSLAMs will go to waste otherwise. Hell, the equipment is cheap enough you can probably order a few more if demand allows for it.

Those does not, as you would like to think provide an endorsement for further FTTN investment. Like with FTTH, the most expensive aspect of the FTTN upgrade Turnbull proposes is the public works.

Telstra could, if they were smart like Chorus, offer VDSL upgrades to properties who could benefit from it while they wait for the NBN. The pay-off would probably be customer loyally when fibre migration comes. For a small percentage of the population with line lengths less than a kilometre they can get NBN like speeds now, and a small expense to Telstra.

Chorus’ model is smarter than what the government has proposed, but you have to understand, Chorus’ model isn’t Turnbull’s. Turnbull’s model is a bastardisation of BT’s model based upon the flawed assumptions that we have the population density, the required copper quality, and that NBNCo can magically become the incumbent in control of the CAN network, to emulate BT.

That’s too many risks for my liking, and although the NBN is open to improvement, like interim VDSL upgrades, HFC network retention or de-prioritisation, pricing revision, a partial government subsidy, and better competition laws than the ones they have proposed and passed, none of these issues question the fundamental viability of if we can do what is proposed, only offer improvements as to how to make sure people get the benefits the NBN will offer sooner.

If Turnbull was really interested in that goal, he would offer to work within the already established framework, and tweak it a little, rather than throw out the book and start again with a new model. We’re well past that point, we as a country cannot afford another model change.

Think of the lost economic benefits from fast broadband from having to wait over a decade for FTTP to be completed when FTTN will allow the vast majority of the benefits to be realised in a much shorter period.

Let’s say you are a 60 year old with an actuarial lifespan of 70 years. You have recently been diagnosed with a debilitating disease which is severely reducing your current quality of life.

You have two options for medical treatments. Option A can be implemented immediately, will not completely cure your disease but will immediately restore 95% of your daily functioning. Option B is very expensive and, according to your financial planner, will require at least eight years of additional interest accumulation on your cash deposits to pay for it.

If you choose Option B, you will continue to suffer severely for the next 8 years of the remaining 10 years of your actuarial lifespan. Which is the rational option to choose?

This is why Chorus NZ is offering FTTN VDSL as an interim stepping stone to full FTTP deployment.

Further, the provided analogy is flawed because it implies that demand for Broadband has a “life span” that is nearly expired, doesn’t even remotely resemble anything comparing to a CBA, and does not consider the option of a hybrid solution (creating a false dichotomy).

The last one I find particularly amusing because it is clear their is a false dichotomy between the two offered plans.

You guys have such a superficial view of what broadband policy is about.

The importance of technology in our economy and society is not about achieving some static benchmark of technical capability divorced from practical application. That is meaningless in itself. It is what that capability enables. Imagine if the archetypal technology-enabled economy evolves from Stage A to B to C to D and this germination follows a chronological order with long gestation periods.

Now, this may be facilitated by investing in readily-implementable technology that is sufficiently advanced but not necessarily state-of-the-art. So, the economy immediately begins the transition from a lower stage of complexity to a more advanced stage without further delay. Conversely, if you choose to implement technology with a far more challenging and longer delivery timescale, you could end up delaying the evolution of the economy by more than a decade and end up lagging behind other countries which have implemented far timelier but still effective solutions. Technology is a means to an end and not an end in itself!

Just like that old man in my analogy, the economy faces chronological pressures and constraints. China can send her best and brightest to the best Western universities and absorb all the latest technologies, but it still takes decades for the economy to evolve, industrialise and grow more complex. Why delay the evolutionary process unnecessarily and hold it hostage to technological fetishes?

Mate, I was posting possible and even seemingly impossivle things that could happen to day to day lives and the economy in a fibre world LONG before you ever graced us with your presence on Delimiter.

I do not disagree that we need to start transforming the way we do things with connectivity ASAP….guess what? 150 000 premises RIGHT NOW can do so on NBN fibre, plus 28 000 on fixed wireless that likely had crap all to plat with before now, with the other 57 000 (MDUs) to follow in the coming months. Plus the 20 odd thousand that were added to fibre and 2000 to fixed wireless just in the last 2 weeks. You seem to be the one looking at this superficially- the NBN does not have to be completed for people to start transforming the way they use connectivity.

And FTTN is NOT going to add any significant time to any significant % of the economy using ‘faster connectivity’ ESPECIALLY when it is so variable in speed and reliability.

And finally, you didn’t answer my question. Please quantify ‘much shorter period’ when referring to FTTN being completed. And please, THINK about it before parroting ‘2016 for 25Mbps and 2019 for 50Mbps’. Be REALISTIC. The NBN is likely to be completed some months, if not a year or so beyond Its current projected finish, unless they can pull in more labour. So when do you REALISTICALLY think FTTN will be completed? 2 years earlier? Maybe? 2 years is precisely ZERO when it comes to impact on the economy. Change in work habits, spending habits and productivity happen over YEARS, not months.

So many words, so much flawed reasoning. And all this to legitimise a politically influenced, second rate solution. FTTP is not a far fetched technological development and it is a “readily-implementable technology”. Incidentally, had your political heroes not sat on their hands for many years, your beloved FTTN would have been available to most of us many years ago.

I am truly amazed that you waste so much of your time and energy trying to argue your case, unless of course Head Office is paying for your time. If not what drives you? The illusion that somehow we are going to be so mesmorised by your dazzling logic that we will end up marching demanding that FTTN be given for all and at all cost.

No matter how much you write, the coalition policy has more holes in it than a strainer. I will name a few.

Unknown state and cost of the copper network, unknown number of nodes, unknown precise distance from the nodes, unknown cost of using VDSL2 +, unknown upload speeds, unknown cost of eventual upgrade, unknown cost FoD and therefore unknown precise cost.

I must say I found you conclusion, “Why delay the evolutionary process unnecessarily and hold it hostage to technological fetishes?” quite ridiculous. In your world, FTTP is a technological fetish. Care to elaborate? Can’t wait for it. How will this delay the evolutionary process? Please enlighten us further.
This, no doubt, will be captivating.

You’ve gotta love the logic of the politically immovable. On the one hand FttP is claimed to be unreachable (as if from a sci-if movie ) … Yet the same people will elsewhere state that FttP will be obsolete before its completed.

There’s only one thing I hate more than those sans foresight and that is political bigotry :(

If Chorus has bitten off more than it can chew building its share of the UFB network for what was really only a $600 million subsidy agreed by the Government in 2011, then it should be possible to efficiently renationalise the company discreetly either through loans that converted to equity or a single bail-out when it was really needed.

So, NBNco can build a $36b FTTP network (reaching 93% of the population) without a single dollar of taxpayer subsidy, but Chorus faces financial ruin building a far smaller network (70%) even with a healthy injection of on-Budget subsidies.

You try and justify the usage of FTTN over FTTH using a flawed anaology, and when that fails, you start looking for indications that other FTTP projects are failing.

You find an article about Chorus’ well documented financial troubles, and think that because of this this somehow invalidates the well established business case of the NBN.

You fail to note the following:

– Forced Migration vs Voluntarily migration.
– Chorus is not the only UFB provider and the others don’t have documented financial trouble.

The fact is the idea that $1.5billion in subsidies was always considered a low ball estimate. The government decided to commit the bear minimum it thought it could get away with. If the government wants to continue with UFB it might have to inject a further $500m, or face the reality that the Australian government have already acknowledged: There isn’t enough commercial return to justify a wholesale FTTP network.

You’re suffering from the same fallacy I pointed out above with Turnbull: just because you got a few things, like financial estimates, wrong does not justify starting again with a new model.

You keep talking about the “quick wins” FTTN can offer, but fail to consider other quick wins that don’t significantly alter the project.

Speaking of “Financial Estimates” NK, it seems the Kiwi’s actually did a CBA for their FTTP.

“For example, a sensitivity analysis showed that by increasing the speed of application adoption by 20% over the baseline, and increasing the total level of application uptake by 20% over the baseline, New Zealand can turn a $33 billion consumer surplus into almost $48 billion.”

Fancy that. It’ll return so much surplus that it could actually pay for our NBN :o)

“So, NBNco can build a $36b FTTP network (reaching 93% of the population) without a single dollar of taxpayer subsidy, but Chorus faces financial ruin building a far smaller network (70%) even with a healthy injection of on-Budget subsidies.

Still waiting for you elaboration of how the “technological fetish” also known as FTTP is holding the evolutionary process hostage. This was so beautifully said, I am anxious to find out whether it means anything at all.

Actually, FTTN was rejected in Aus because Telstra was the only vendor capable of doing it without an enormous legal battle (as they owned the infrastructure already) and Conjob dumped their non-compliant bid.

FTTP was announced to take everyone’s minds off the complete failure of the government to get it’s policy up. The story that FTTN (which was still being championed only a few short months beforehand) was suddenly poo, considering it was supposed to be implemented over the following years, is laughable. Of course the government would write off their first choice to promote their second and cover up for their failure…

Let’s not compound NBNco’s fudged figures with a hefty dose of revisionism, the ALP and it’s supporters credibility is already pretty bad. It really doesn’t need to get worse at this point.

I get a good laugh out of people who think Rudd is going to bring home the election at this point. Between retiring ALP members (some who have stood for decades and have a personal following in the electorate) to the loss of the independents to the Nats, Rudd could consider himself fortunate to hold on to a significant portion of the lower house.

At best (at least for ALP supporters), we might end up with a hung parliament again with a Lib minority gov. I wouldn’t bet much on it though.

Back on topic, the dip in support for the NBN is disappointing for those who wanted it, but not hard to see coming. Labor’s indulgent self involvement at the one time every four years when they should be puckering up to kiss our asses is doing them no favours or credit.

The government took the advice of the Expert Panel which included the Treasury Secretary, 2 CEO’s (one with a communications background, one with investment banking ), 2 academics (both Comms focused), a former Australian Communications Authority Chairman and was Chaired by the ACMA.

Oh, another opinionated Coalition supporter. Not just happy to reinvent the history of the emergence of FTTP but also prepared to share his take on what will happen at the election. And all this with a copious amount of makes him laugh.

Well thank you for this. As a result of your eloquent tirade, I am sure that most of us will ignore any other information at our disposal and start believing that FTTN is the best thing that could ever happen in this country.

As for the drop in support that was not hard to predict. Once MT released his half baked policy, your fellow travelers had something to support, so they drop their support of FTTP. The rest of the population is still strongly in favour of the NBN in its present form.

With regards with kissing our arses (not asses), this is usually done by the coalition, you know (baby bonuses, tax cuts, welfare for those who don’t need it…).

The poll figures quoted (and this isn’t an error by Renai) have a missing 6% in the NBN figures.

If you want to tell me that the poll is as pack of crap and means nothing I would agree. To use that poll to try and support anything with a missing 6% figure is to say the least bloody ludicrous. That poll is not worth the paper it was printed on. The 3% error rating just went out the window. End of Story!

When are you moving to the UK? Surely, your love of everything BT is so overpowering, it would be a strong motivator. You could even apply for a job there and use a copy of all your postings to show your undying love of the company.

I hope you do. It would be a bonus for many of us. I can just begin to dream about the immediate reduction in trolling.

I put this down to a low number of people that were polled, along with the fact that it wouldn’t surprise me if the 14% who voted down the NBN were liberal supporters.

As the saying goes… Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

Show me complete stats on the people who got polled, such as what party they prefer, what age group they are in, etc… and then maybe i’ll agree with the stats. At the end of the day though, when it comes to surveys, it is all in the question that is asked.

MT has, to the great consernation of many of the fanbois, consistently said that the coalition policy is to “complete” the NBN (or NBN objective depending on the sound bite).

Very few polls have directly compared the two, so in a lot of voters minds either political party is a vote for the NBN.

I think this finding is more reflective of Coalition voters thinking the policy should be changed to their policy, and Labor voters who think the management of the NBN could be tweaked but the fibre percentage should remain the same.

“BT has quietly shelved a target to deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to 25% of its fibre customers.

However, a BT spokesperson has told PC Pro that improvements in the speed of FTTC have led BT to drop the target.

“We don’t tend to talk about that particular target for FTTP any more as our fibre programme has evolved, so it is far less relevant today,” said a spokesperson. “That’s because since that figure was provided we’ve doubled the headline speeds available on FTTC from up to 40Mbits/sec to up to 80Mbits/sec, and we’re constantly exploring new technologies that could further enhance the performance of FTTC.”

Albo’s interesting iron vs copper analogy from 100 years ago and stories of medical marvels over fibre, can only last so long. He did a fairly poor job of arguing the case for the NBN on QandA last night I thought. In fairness he’s only just become Comms minister, but there’s no doubt he has a lot of technical points to brush up on if he is going to be able to competently debate Turnbull on the merits of Labor’s NBN (as well as educate the general public of its benefits over the coalition’s plans in laymen terms).

And please someone tell Albo to stop calling Megabits “Megs”! It’s already hard enough trying to make people aware of the difference between a megabit and a megabyte. Stick to the exact terminology.

I think “Albo’s” iron vs copper analogy is actually pretty good. It shows he understands the fight between old and new technologies at lease.

And him not being a “tech head” may also be a good thing, if a non-tech can explain it and it’s benefits, more non-tech people may actually finally understand why it’s important…though he should keep a tech handy to cover the real technical points.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was one the best NBN analogies I’d heard, when I first read about Albanese bringing it up in parliament, and I’m glad he got a chance to express it again on QandA too. However I’m saying he’s going to need more than a clever analogy, and will likely need to brush up on his technical skillset in order to be able to clearly articulate the differences between Labor and The Coalition’s policies when required. Particularly when it comes to expressing the the huge advantages of fibre’s upload speeds, and the types of applications and businesses that can make the best use of such bandwidth.

Turnbull has the weakest policy to offer by far, but he’s a clever guy, and so far appears to be doing a pretty good job at fooling a lot of people into thinking his short sighted plan represents better value, and that people will get a broadband upgrade quicker than waiting for FTTP to come to their area under Labor.

We need Albanese to be as informed as possible about all the negatives to the LNP’s approach, and to lift public confidence in the speed and competency of the NBN rollout, so that people understand while it might be have the odd setback due to things like contractual issues, and that it might take longer to reach some people than FTTN would – Labor’s approach is most definitely worth the wait.

I wont deny “Albo” will need to brush up on the technical aspects a bit more, though he doesn’t need degree level knowledge on it, a lot of companies executives make decisions about stuff like this all the time, he just needs to make sure he has good team behind him that actually do have that knowledge.

I was interested to note two things he brought up on Q&A after only about a week in the job, he highlighted how narrow the actual difference is in the cost of the plans and also brought up the importance of upload speed. Conroy always seemed to let that slide (maybe because he was more comfortable with the tech and felt he didn’t need to explain it?).

IMHO, Albanese is a much better communicator all round compared to Conroy.

Fair points. I certainly agree that Albo is a better communicator in general than Conroy, who has always come across as arrogant. Clinging on to widely-hated policies, like his beloved internet filter, didn’t do Conroy any favours either.

And that costing LIE, to the tune of 60 Billion over current forecasts is not in focus, instead it is that Gillard and Conroy apparently lied stating that the cost of FoD would be $5000.

Is it any wonder the general public appear to be losing faith in the NBN when it is micro analysed and critisized every day in the media. This occurs even with elements which both the NBN and LBN share in common. In contrast it appears that when the LBN is analysed and critisized, it is simply waived off as being fanatical fanboys nitpicking the policy.

Agreed. The media have obviously done the most damage to public perception of the NBN, but Labor still has to take some of the blame for not clearly articulating both the benefits of Labor’s NBN and the details of how it differs from the coalitions’s policy. For starters Albo needs to illustrate some good real world examples of why upload speed is so important (he failed miserably at that last night). And Labor desperately need a new NBN ad campaign that people can grasp.

You can almost hear the Labor marketing think tank discussion on their NBN advertising.

1. Never ever mention the phrase Fibre to the Node, or the acronym FTTN.
2. When referring to the Coalition rollout refer to it as the old decrepit copper connection, whatever you do never mention fibre.
3. When referring to FoD empathise the YOU WILL PAY, and make sure that you mention that magic number we pulled out of a hat, $5000.
4. Make FoD confusing, infer it is a upgrade to old decrepit copper, never ever mention it is a optional upgrade to FTTN, and never mention the 50-50 co funding on FoD.
4. The ‘up to’ in front of the $5000 is at the discretion of each MP, it depends how much scare element you think you need.
5. Avoid mentioning successful mixed infrastructure rollout overseas.
6. Avoid questions on missed rollout targets if you can, if the questioner is persistent, just say we are in the ‘ramp up phase’, this phase can be as long as you want it to be.

The Libs have made a rod for their own back with the “FoD being confusing” part of the plan.

For folks to get it, they need to determine if their place is “technically feasible and commercially viable” for it. Huh? If they are paying for it, shouldn’t it already be “commercially viable”?? And “technically feasible”?? In what context? Will they do a study to see if FTTP actually works, or not, to house X??

They need to sort out the “technically feasible” bit before they even switch over to an FTTN LBN, and then just offer “FoD as long as you pay for it”.

Malcolm is the one who raised the suggestion about technical and commercial feasibility, not me.

As I’ve said many times before, the LBN (including FoD) is feasible (though I think he’s ignoring some considerable costs that haven’t been factored in yet, that make it less feasible than the NBN…that, however, don’t make the LBN “undoable”).

The point here is that the two conditions proposed by MT are not straight forward. Saying that something is available but needs to be technically feasible and commercial viable is only there to justify not doing it.

Of course it is technically feasible (After all, MT say if copper not suitable, fibre will be used). Likewise, it would commercially viable (People are going to pay for it). MT is only trying to cover himself for situations when the cost would be ridiculously expensive or the provision of FoD would be highly disruptive to the main roll out. Like everything else in the coalition plan or other policies, it is all about aspirations and aims and not about guaranteeing anything.

The problem with your analysis is that obviously BT thinks FoD is both technically AND commercially viable, they are a listed company on the UK stock exchange where they have to provide healthy dividends and a high share price for their shareholders, keep in mind also this is a company that rolls out FTTC and FTTP simultaneously.

They seem to be traveling ok.

“Shares in BT reached their highest level in more than five years as the UK telecoms company increased its dividend, upgraded its outlook ”

“For the first time in four years, revenues at BT’s retail division did not fall, after an additional 136,000 customers purchased its broadband services in the last quarter.”

This whole sub-thread just highlights “The Libs have made a rod for their own back with the “FoD being confusing” part of the plan.”

And Malcolm could easily sort it out by defining what would be “technically feasible” before hand. Limit the runs to XYZ metres, or if XYZ people in an area apply for it, whatever. Surely he had enough time to define what would be “technically feasible”, it’s basically the Liberals “jewel in the crown” policy.

And as to the commercially viable, if Clive Palmer wants to hook up, and pay for, his country getaway to the LBN, why would “commercially viable” even come into it??

Are you disingenuous, plain slow or have reading difficulties? Read again, slowly, and you will find that this is exactly what I argued and that is that FoD should be viable, both economically and technically. What you either missed or ignored was this bit:

“MT is only trying to cover himself for situations when the cost would be ridiculously expensive or the provision of FoD would be highly disruptive to the main roll out.”

Because, it makes no sense otherwise to add this two qualifiers. Maybe you can find a better justification? If you should try, make sure you do so with invoking BT because what BT is doing is irrelevant.What MT is going to do is what matters.

These are not personal attacks. The first two are descriptions of your responses. If you don’t like them, then change the way you participate in the debate.

The last one is a question. In fact, a choice of three possibilities as to why you totally ignored, or did not read or comprehend what I was saying. This was justified, given the way you responded to my post.

Perhaps, you should take time to reflect on the way you debate with people in this forum. I am not going to list the many occasions when you use sarcasm or smart alec answers. Nor will I revisit the many questions you have avoided.

Just try to behave differently and you may be surprised how people might react to you. I, personally, come to this forum to learn and contribute in areas where I may have some knowledge or skill and I find it frustrating to read attempts to win arguments at all cost that eventually do very little to contribute to the debate, but create frustration

These numbers don’t seem to be much different to past poll results however we dont know exactly what the 15% want changed. It could be that they want fibre beyond the 93% footprint or it could be that they think the rollout site priority could be different or a number of other factors. Taking it as implicit support for the coalition clown alternative is disingenuous.

“Troubling news here for supporters of the NBN. If Essential’s results are to be believed, support for the NBN policy as a whole has really taken a hit over the past several months…”

Can you please explain how you came to that conclusion… cause I can’t see it in the article.

From the looks of it you’re presenting a fairly solid opinion, and one that is a good guess based on the events to date, but haven’t been able to show us how the data confirms that.

If I’m to understand this right, according to the new poll only 15% of the population think the NBN should be dumped… as opposed to your earlier article where “9 percent of respondents strongly opposed the NBN policy and a further 10 percent opposed it, making only 19 percent in total of Australians which opposed the project.”

So we’ve gone from 19% disagreeing to 15% wanting it to be dumped… I can’t see how that demonstrates a change over time as opposed to a change of question.

As far as I can tell you appear to be claiming that a new metric ‘people who want the nbn changed’ is somehow a negative thing, but haven’t explained why this is so or how it represents a change in public opinion. I want the NBN changed, have wanted so since the beginning, and am proNBN.

Maybe the data is there, but I can’t see it in the article and I’m too damn lazy to do your work for you.

Well if polls are to be believed, this may not be an issue. Two polls show labor and coalition neck and neck and Morgan has Labor on 53.5%. Furthermore, Newspoll has the preferred prime minister 53-31 for Rudd.

It is worth noting that none of the MSM are reporting the Morgan results.

Should the trend of these results persist and Labor wins, the coalition’s policy will no longer be a possibility.

Also, it is difficult to compare this poll with previous ones since the questions were framed differently. The results still show than only 14% say dump the NBN and 50% say keep it. Any speculation about the 15% suggesting change can only be that, given the lack of clarity about the nature and extent of the change.

In fact, if you were to leave the 15% who don’t have an opinion and assume that the of 14% who want change all are negative about the NBN (This is highly unlikely), you still have 63% favourable to the NBN. That’s very close to the October 12 Essential poll.

Isn’t Newspoll notorious for being the least accurate when compared with election results?
They also never disclose sample size, methods or actual questions posed.
(though in typical Fox/News Ltd fashion they claim black as white)

I don’t think you can say that one polling organisation is more or less accurate. They all have their moment of glory. Polls are only an approximation.

One of the big issues with polling is that many people are not prepared to be interviewed. So ultimately, you are more likely to end with the views of those who don’t mind being interviewed and those not very good at saying no.

“putting up a sensible and more modest alternative”
I am almost hoping that the Liberal’s NBN gets rolled out. Some people may learn a few things. Looking forward to the reporting on the FTTN rollout and statistics on achieved speeds and connection up times.

Read the post more carefully. I think FTTH is the way to go and too many people think FTTN is a viable alternative. I don’t believe it is, and I think they believe what Turnbull says and haven’t looked deep enough into it technically. I think those people will find FTTN will not deliver what MT promises and will not rollout when MT says and will create a money pit.

Darwin City gets switched on this Thursday, I will be there. When Syntho got dumped I must admit NBNco did get on with it quickly. I didn’t really notice any work actually stop happening, just slow down for a bit. The only issue I have with the roll out schedule up here is the area happening first seem to leave 2 commercial/industrial areas to last. I get NBN at home before my work office or warehouse site.

However the big difference that will be made to the remote areas is when the NBN satellite go live. I’ve worked on a few projects with School of the Air and while latency will continue to be an unavoidable issue, the extra bandwidth will open up new possibilities and improve the quality of those already implemented. This is one area I hope the LNP don’t touch if they get in.

“I’d like to see the same results for the Turnbull Bullshit Network – I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be getting anywhere near 50% approval.”

I agree and let me tell you something. People are not stupid. Turnbull and Abbott want/hope people are stupid when it comes to the NBN. Thing is when explained even in basic detail people I speak to say the Turnbull patchwork plan does not make any sense. These people do not have the technical knowledge of you and I but even they GET it. They understand the fundamental difference between copper and fibre and they dont want to be stuck on copper at all.

“What is clear, more than anything else, is that people do want something better than the current situation.”

This is not quite so. What is clear is that coalition’s voters are rallying behind the party of their preference which is hardly surprising given how close the results may end up being.

Keeping the NBN as is was supported by 78% of Labor voters.

This is very close to the results of the February 2012 study which had support from Labor voters at 80%. In fact, Labor voters’ support has always been around the 80% mark in most studies. Also considering that it is unclear how many of those who would like some change still support the NBN, the results still shows a strong support for the NBN. What is certain is that only a small percentage, 14%, definitively does not want the NBN as is.

So, the best that can be said is that support of the NBN as is has diminished amongst coalition voters. Surely, this should not be a surprise. One only has to look at the views of our residents pro FTTN to see what this would be the case.

We don’t really know what the meaning of the figures were apart from the it being a popularity pole. It shows that the three most popular projects are NDIS (jointly supported by each party) NBN and Better Schools (was Gonski). It is also noted that the figures for the NBN are shy by 6% so it is possible that 50% should be 56%..

I could extrapolate these figures and say there has been a 5% increase in support for the NBN and that Renai’s interpretation is therefore total rubbish..

The simple fact is that it is a pole and as we all know poles are horribly fickle. The question specifically mentions Rudd which may have tended to skew the results and you would have to have a similar pole mentioning Gillard to know how much that effected the result.

Sorry Renai but I don’t see how we can use this pole which has a loaded question and missing data to point out anything but how you shouldn’t do a pole.

All the non supporters of Labour NBN seem to think they are getting the Liberal NBN for free. It is very frustrating as the Liberal NBN cost estimate does not even consider costs of buying back the copper of Telstra, copper repair costs, copper maintenance costs, mini nodes, power costs to run the 70K + nodes and many others. There is no talk about return on investment. Labour really needs to put in place someone who can represent the NBN for what it is. Lets not forget that in the end the Liberal NBN will need to be replaced with fibre to the premise, how is that cheaper. How can M.T lie about this daily and get away with it. Wake up people…

The Coalition Policy will mean a high percentage of the Australian public will have access to high-speed copper-based services. There is also a percentage of Wireless and Satellite. That may all cost more to fund than Turnbull thinks, but that’s their policy.

A minimum of 25Mbit. That’s what the Policy states, so that’s what we should expect to be delivered.

The user-pays portion relates to having a fibre service deployed from Node to Premises. The jury is still out on the likely price range. Coalition supporters would like you to believe it’ll cost chicken feed. Time will tell.

As for the budgetary concerns over Turnbull’s policy. I believe that’s really only going to become evident post a Coalition majority win. I also believe he has chosen to not include some costs to reduce the Policy’s funding numbers, as you do, but how much that is, will only be truly evident, then.

As an aside, with the number of parties now, I suspect the days of a majority government are over, as voting is already starting to spread more heavily towards independants; never mind three new Political Parties this election.

So that might make changing the NBN more complicated down the track, but that’s just my opinion.

A minimum 25Mbps would require all copper connections to be audited, that costs money.
A minimum 25Mbps would require all copper connections to be fit for 25mbps minimum – thus mean copper replacement.
A minimum 25Mbps would require more ‘mini-modes’.

… and there are no ‘holes’ in the NBN Co Business version No 2 2012-2105 amended April 2013 because?

If there problems during the Coalition rollout itself meeting what they originally said in the policy released April this year you just keep publishing amended documents with changed figures – problem solved.

You could also define your own ‘premises passed’ figure to any residence that has copper connected.

What about you? Why don’t you ever answer points directly, rather than trying to deflect the point.

You seem to have perfected the art of asking questions. You don’t need anymore practice. Time to try and develop your answering questions skill. It would have the immediate effect of improving your contribution to this site. Furthermore, it would diminish the risk of being seen as a troll.

Also, you should try punctuation in your sentences, it’s fun and makes it easier for others to understand what you are trying to say.

Yes I thought redefining ‘premises passed’ as anyone that has copper connected as being pretty much spot on.

Taking the NBN Co redefining of ‘premises passed’ as having fibre in the street but you cannot connect to it yet, it’s feasible to say FTTN ‘premises passed’ is having copper in the street but you cannot connect to it yet.

Up to 1G of contended bandwidth vs 25M of dedicated bandwidth, so no they are not directly comparable. Anyhow, regardless of the last mile technology it all gets contended when it hits the ISP router, so the difference in practical terms to the average user is not noticeable… not in today’s market at any rate.

Sorry, but I call Bullshit on that. Yes, the 1Gbit is contended. The 25Mbit is ALSO contended. Malcolm has said nothing about guaranteeing a THROUGHPUT of 25Mbit. Only LINE SPEED of 25Mbit.

Malcolm would know little if anything about the last mile contention on FTTN, which is actually WORSE than GPON (2.5Gbit shared between 32 at 25Mbit, giving a theoretical 1:1 contention compared to 5Gbit for 300 at 25Mbit giving a 1:1.5 contention). And no, you can’t compare the fact that you can get 1Gbit on GPON without saying you can ALSO get 80-100 on FTTN for some.

25mbit one way isn’t slow. Being on a connection that hits 25mbit it is great. Sort of. One way.

I get 1.4mbit uphill. On a good day. Assuming it’s not raining. That’s not fast. It’s not that great. In fact it’s a little bit shit.

And that still better than a lot of other folks get.

FttN was a great idea, really. 10 years ago. When Telstra was the infrastructure builder. Now it’s the NBNco. Under the Liberal policy, it’s still the NBNco. There’s precious little logic in rebuilding an old network to make it new again, when the costs are the same.

Perhaps you could tell us how much in the way of “government funds”, are currently being estimated for each alternate network (i.e. the current NBN vs the smaller, less efficient, very Telstra FttN)?

Let’s face it, as the NBN naysayers have always wanted to suggest and then argue over the NBN being “taxpayer funded”, so this comparison of the two plans is the pertinent one, IMO.

One would assume however, when factoring the difference in footprint sizes of the larger FttP vs smaller FttN, that a Coalition government, government monies spend on FttN would therefore be greater than the current governmental monies spend on FttP, wouldn’t it?

The alternative way of viewing the numbers in that poll is that pretty much all Labor policies are embraced by the community as a great idea, then as time passes and the problems and shortcomings become more and more evident the support falls.

As opposed to Coalition policies which voters either hate from day one and come to hate more as they see them working, like WorkChoices, or like from day one and come to love more as they see them working, like its asylum seeker polices.

That is, the problem on the Labor side is that it knows what voters want but lacks the policy and administrative competence to come up with things that actually work, whereas on the Coalition side it is introducing policies that voters just don’t want, knowing they don’t want them, but intending to ram them in to suit their friends.

Diehard liberals + dumbshits + old farts = 29%
15% can see which policy is better but don’t quite realise that a *possible* small amount of savings would be almost entirely irrelevant in the long term. Especially when considering the “alternative policy”.
And 56% of people polled are either diehard Labour or recognise how critical it is for us to fix the nations communications network.

Now considering that boats are irrelevant, carbon/mining taxes are irrelevant and most of the other stuff is pretty much bi-partisan and some of the 15% will vote for NBN. Should be an easy NBN win =D

That is, as long as only 29% of the country is retarded.

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